Many bands' first steps were across the threshold of the Golden West

By Marisa Demarco

U.K. oi! band The Business takes the stage. Young testosterone-riddled skinheads start slam dancing, but the Party Vikings, a local gang of rowdy punk rockers, have named themselves the kings of the pit. It isn't too long before a full-scale riot breaks loose, remembers Gordy Andersen, Black Maria singer and Albuquerque rock stalwart. Punks throw pool balls down from the Golden West's balcony. Tables and chairs cartwheel through the air and are smashed into sticks. And The Business just keeps playing.

Drum kit metal, bikinis and fireworks

Anat Cohen, award-winning clarinetist/saxophonist, brings her quartet to the Outpost

By Mel Minter

When she was busy mastering American jazz on her tenor saxophone, Anat Cohen gave little thought to the clarinet collecting dust in her closet, or to other genres of music. But she now moves effortlessly between both instruments and among a variety of musical styles.

Sera Cahoone isn't writing a new chapter in the story of alt.country, but she's adding a few colorful pages to the book. The former drummer in indie faves Carissa's Weird and Band of Horses tries her hand at singer/songwriting and makes a couple handfuls of quiet, cloudy melodies that pour on the pity. Save for a pinch of pedal steel and banjo, the bulk of the backup to Cahoone's weightless vocals comes from plodding acoustic guitar—the album suffers slightly from a dragging tempo. Perhaps overly simplistic, but never offensive, Only as the Day is Long is a carefully constructed LP with a lot of promise. (SM)